


Welcome to Nowhere

by TheWhispers



Category: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms, Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Descent into Madness, Experimental Style, F/M, Flippant Narrator Voice, Gen, Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Jump Scares, Major repeated character death, Multi, Other, Psychological Horror, Sort of Reincarnation, Supernatural Forces, Surreal, Unreliable Narrator, feeling of being trapped, inspired by creepypasta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28832352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhispers/pseuds/TheWhispers
Summary: What if there was a deep dark place hidden within the depths of your dreams that took the form of a dark labyrinth in the middle of Nowhere? And what if you weren't sure if you could wake up from this nightmare?
Relationships: Alice & Mad Hatter (Alice in Wonderland), Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell, It gets complicated okay?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Welcome to Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is a project that has been kind of my baby for quite a few years now since I keep pulling it out, giving it a fresh coat of paint, and then taking it for another spin. I'd previously published this project under the name of "A Dash of Pineapple" over on the fanfiction site for a completely different fandom, but I wanted to give the general concept a spin in the FMA universe. This is by no means the final form of the project, as I will probably keep remaking it for the rest of my life. But I wanted to give some of these concepts a good test drive before I finally make the leap into turning this story original.
> 
> I don't know how long I want this story to be just yet since I'm plotting out a long series for the original version of this story, so I haven't a clue how long this fanfic will be. It could either wind up fairly short or incredibly long, depending on how much fun I'm having with it. Your feedback would greatly help me with regards to knowing how long to keep it running.
> 
> Anyway, without further ado, I present to you the first chapter of "Welcome to Nowhere". Aaaaand... I don't really have anything else to say about that, so enjoy?

This story doesn't have a beginning because I don't actually know where it begins. So instead, I'll start at the point where the world suddenly ceased to make sense. Is that the right place to start when telling a story? I don't know. But it's the place I'm going to start here since I can't make sense of anything else.

So, we open on a scene where I'm opening my eyes, and I find myself waking up in the middle of some kind of smoky labyrinth. I closed my eyes again immediately, considering that the most logical thought after seeing such a thing is to first check whether you're dreaming. But even if I was dreaming, the act of closing my eyes against the sight didn't wake me up from it, and I set my eyes on the labyrinthine landscape sprawled out before me.

I got to my feet and looked around, but I can't say that there was all that much to see. The walls on all sides looked as though they were made of glowing purple smoke, which made me wonder if they had any substance to them. A quick smack on a nearby wall, which resulted in a thud and a few choice words from me as a result revealed that despite appearances, the walls were indeed solid, though I had no idea how.

I stepped back from the wall and spun in place for several revolutions, just hoping that maybe if I took this place in, that maybe I would understand what was going on here. Or maybe I would have some sort of inkling on how to get out of here and back to wherever reality was. But by the eighth spin, I had to admit to myself that I was going to have no such luck in determining any magic solution to... whatever this was.

I gulped at the realization of what had to be done. I was going to have to just go through the maze. And I didn't know what I would find in there once I did. My hackles went up in preparation from what I knew I might be about to face, and I took my first step toward trying to actually go through.

Now, the thing about mazes is that a lot of them have very little to help you distinguish where you are from where you've been, and I kept kicking myself mentally every five minutes for not bothering to leave some kind of trail or something so that I would at least have a clue whether I'd been over the area I was currently in or not. But then I would remember that I had nothing I could leave as a trail, even if I wanted to. And the deeper I went into the maze, the more I realized that I might not actually want to leave a trail, even if I found a way to do so. I wasn't so sure I wanted to leave evidence of my existence.

Am I getting too sidetracked in my storytelling here? Perhaps I should back up. Or skip forward. Time means nothing here anyway, so I'm going to jump to wherever the next most interesting point in the story takes place. I can't say that I really know when in my timeline that happens to be. I'm not even sure if I have a timeline anymore, or if I've stepped outside of time altogether.

The further I journeyed into the labyrinth, the stronger the whispers became. I don't know what to tell you about the nature of the whispers, whether they were sinister or neutral or just happening along without realizing I could hear them, but it was unsettling. Especially since the attempted question of, "Hey, who's there?" didn't end up helping much. I started to suspect that the whispers might be a product of my own imagination, the consequence of having been trapped in this strange place for so long by myself. Isolation over extended periods of time tends to wear on a person's mind, and it only made sense that my mind might manufacture some semblance of conversation. Though I had to admit that if that was the case, that my mind wasn't doing that great of a job at keeping me company since I couldn't understand a single thing it said. "Stupid brain," I said, "not even going insane correctly. Shame on you." My brain had nothing to say in reply, which was smart of it. It clearly knew what it had done wrong.

But I promised something more interesting by this point in the story, didn't I? Well, here it is. I'd wandered alone in the labyrinth for some time... days? Weeks? I honestly had no sense of time, but it had already felt like forever. Nothing had changed at all in all that time until this moment, for that's when I suddenly realized I wasn't alone. 

One would think that was a good thing to not be alone after all that isolation, but the fact that the figure I saw looked more like a silhouette than a flesh and blood being, and they were crawling on all fours and growling just kind of sent my blood curdling in fright. I'd seen enough creatures that sent off dangerous signals like that throughout my lifetime, and I wasn't going to stick around to figure out whether it was a friendly puppy that just happened to be misunderstood. Considering that the chances of my running into some kind of serial killer or monster seemed fairly high at the moment, I opted for the safe route and skedaddled out of the way before the creature fully knew what had happened.

If you're frustrated at that scene not lasting longer, don't fret. This is only the beginning of the story, and that is only the first monster I encountered. The fact that I encountered such a disoriented monster as my first one is probably the reason that I'm still alive enough to tell the tale. 

The volume of the whispers only increased after that first encounter, and no amount of scolding them would shut them up. Trust me, I had tried. I'd unleashed my entire arsenal of insults and swear words at them, and I'd even used up my entire lifetime supply of fucks in the hopes that the whispers would at least acknowledge me for once, but nothing helped. 

I gripped my head and screamed at nothing in particular. "Damn it, brain! Why can't you just make me hallucinate a friend to talk to like every other brain does? Aren't you supposed to make it easier for me to escape reality when reality becomes too hard to bear?" My brain said nothing in defense of its actions like the traitor it was. I huffed and leaned against a nearby wall as I crossed my arms. "You're just scared because you know you don't have a leg to stand on, brain. At least I have legs. Well, I have one leg. But that makes me superior to you, you damn brain!"

The brain continued in its stubborn silence. Playing hardball, I take it? Well, two could play at this game. If my brain was going to ignore me, I could ignore it in return. We would see who cracked first. 

Now you're probably thinking that a story that just has one mindlessly wandering through a maze for the entire duration of the story would end up not going anywhere, or that it would at least end up not being a very long story. But that is where you would be wrong. Just give me a second, and I'll finally kick this story into gear and stop stalling it. Trust me, I really will. It's just hard to get one's brain working after it's had so much time to just slack off, you know?

Anyway, I started the story back at the point where I had first woken up in the maze, though I could have started it at the point where I first entered the maze. And I could have also started it at the point I'm going to next. And there are several other places where I could start this story, and perhaps all of them are equally valid places to start. Maybe you could consider all of them an equally valid start to the story and let me know which one is your favorite way to start so that I can tell it better next time. If I ever get a next time.

So, let's start this story once again, shall we?

I woke up in a random place that I simultaneously knew incredibly well and didn't know at all, and I have no idea how to explain that sensation. I knew on some level that I had been there for forever, but I also knew that I had never set foot in this place before. I sat up and rubbed my eyes groggily as I checked the time. Oh right, my watch wasn't going to tell me something as petty as the time, now was it? I mostly used that watch to remind me of what year it was since the years tended to drag on and get rather confusing here. I couldn't really answer the question of where "here" was since I both felt like I'd been here forever and like I'd never seen this place before. 

I was seated at a table beneath a little grove of trees. I wouldn't say that it wasn't a beautiful setting, but there was something unsettling about it. I glanced up and nodded. Yep. That was it. It was the fact that I was wearing a damn hat. I pulled the top hat off of my head and scowled at the thing for having dared to sneak onto my head. But then my head was cold, and I was feeling bored, so I put it back on my head. I went through this process several times before I decided to find something else to do, like actually taking a freaking look at my surroundings.

The surroundings were about what one would expect. Used dishes all over the table, teapots and pastries scattered hither and yon, a giant rabbit and mouse passed out on the table for some reason. You know, just the normal things. Ignoring the sleeping animals since I really didn't care whether they were there or not, I picked up the nearest teacup and looked into it and scowled. The darn thing looked like it hadn't been washed in forever. Who was responsible for doing the dishes around here? The mouse would probably drown in the dishwater, and while the rabbit-man might be able to pull it off, I wasn't so sure I wanted rodent hair all over my dishes. Which meant that I was probably the one responsible for doing the dishes, but that I hadn't gotten around to it for some time now. "Damn it, who put me in charge of dishes?" I said.

Rabbit-man suddenly snorted awake and turned to face me. "If you want to be in charge of dishes, then actually give them a command for once instead of confusing them so much." He then plopped his head back down on the table and started snoring again. I have nothing more to say on Rabbit-man. I have no idea what to think of him, but at least he wasn't trying to kill me like the thing in the maze was.

All at once, the images of wandering through the maze, trapped and alone flooded through my mind. I could swear that my pulse and my breathing sped up for a moment as I remembered frantically trying to find my way out of the place. How had I gotten out? Or had I? Where even was I?

I snapped out of my reverie with a literal snap. Rabbit-man was snapping his fingers in front of my face. "Look," he said, "If you want to command legions of dishes to do your bidding, I won't interfere with your dreams. But I was very much enjoying the dream I was having, so please at least try to keep the screams down when the dishes inevitably revolt."

That got my attention, and I turned and glared at Rabbit-man. " _Inevitably?_ What makes you think I couldn't be an absolutely fantastic dish overlord?"

Rabbit-man responded by taking a sip of his tea. I hadn't realized he'd had tea until that moment, but apparently he'd had tea with him all this time. I hoped he hadn't been sleeping with his nose in that teacup, but I wouldn't have put it past him. 

"Come on," I said, banging my fist on the table and shattering the dirty teacup that had started the whole mess. "What makes you think that there would be an inevitable dish revolt?"

"Hmmm..." said Rabbit-man as he glanced at my automail arm that had committed the atrocity. "Well, I can definitely say that you rule with an iron hand."

That stopped me cold for a moment, not because I was actually stunned at the brilliance of his attempted joke, but the fact that the pun-level was so atrocious that I had to take a moment out of my day to just sit and glare at the rabbit. Some part of myself questioned why I was spending my time just glaring at a rabbit, and I told that part of myself to just go and shove off. This was between the rabbit and me.

The battle had no winner, so I sighed and returned to the start of the entire ordeal, which was now a broken mess of cup shards scattered between the table and the ground beneath. Well, even if I did end up cleaning that cup, I wasn't going to be drinking out of it now. All at once I stood up. "I want a clean cup!" I said. Then, glancing around the table, I came up with what seemed to be the most logical conclusion at the time of how to go about achieving this. "Change places!"

The next few moments were a frenzy as Rabbit-man, Mouse-thingy, and I all raced around the table to find a new place to sit that had clean, or at least cleaner, dishes. I poured myself some tea and put some things in it that seemed like a good idea at the time: sugar, cream, someone's chest hair, and then I stirred it up and took a sip. It could have used a little lemon if I'm honest.

"So, Rabbit-man and Mouse... thingy? Tell me something. How did we meet?"

Rabbit-man spat out his tea and glared at me. I'm not sure whether the tea was that bad or if he was just really offended at me. It could have been both, honestly. " _Rabbit-_ man?" he said. "What did I tell you about calling me that?"

I shrugged. Part of me remembered being here, but the other part of me had never met this dork before today and couldn't remember anything about how I was supposed to treat him, or why it even mattered to me. "I'm guessing I'm not supposed to call you that?"

Rabbit-man who was apparently not supposed to be called Rabbit-man smacked the table in outrage, which woke up the Mouse-thingy who had apparently already gone back to sleep. "What is not insulting about calling a hare a 'rabbit', hmmm?"

I snorted at this response and took a sip of my tea. It could still use some lemon. "I could always call you 'Hairy' if you prefer."

Hairy started to shake his finger at me, and then his finger froze in mid-air as he winced at his own thought process. I chuckled and took another sip of my lemon-less tea. It seemed that as much as he hated to admit it, he almost preferred Hairy over Rabbit-man. And that was okay. I could comply with such a simple request. It wasn't like it would be hard to remember, considering that he was covered from head to toe in hair.

In response to all of this, the Mouse-thingy suddenly spoke up and said, "Call me Slappyfish." No further context or anything. I stared at him in confusion for a moment like I was waiting for him to speak up again and explain himself. He didn't.

"What?" I said. "No," I said. "I'm not calling you 'Slappyfish'," I said. "Pick a different name," I said.

To which, he said, "Ah, poo." And that was the end of that. I scratched my head in wonderment at whatever had just happened there. I then turned to Hairy and pointed to the Mouse-thingy. "Does he actually have a name? You know, one that isn't, uh... the one he asked for?"

Hairy shrugged and took a sip of his tea, and then a bite out of his teacup that he chewed up before laboriously gulping down. "He's never awake long enough to tell us." I stared in silence at that announcement since I can't say that I liked that announcement very much and was waiting for a different announcement to be made. Hairy in turn must have caught my hopeful glance and said, "You could just call him Slappyfish if you want him to have a name so badly."

"I am _not_ calling him Slappyfish!" I said. "It sounds like it could be a euphemism for something, and I don't like making euphemisms without knowing what they're euphemisms of."

"Is anything _not_ a euphemism?" said Hairy. "One can turn almost anything into a euphemism if they think on it long enough. I would say that I think of a new euphemism at least six times before breakfast, except that I haven't had breakfast in months. So I think of euphemisms while my nose is down in my cup."

I held up my hands in surrender. "Okay, how about we _not_ talk about anything that involves euphemisms, okay?" I shivered. I didn't want to think of anything adult-related that Hairy could involve himself in. It was a terrifying thought.

Before Hairy or Mouse-man could come up with anything else to say, I butt in with, "So, what are we doing today then?"

Mouse-man snored as he sleepily responded. "The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world."

"With tea," said Hairy. "Don't tell me you forgot the tea!"

I was done with these weirdos, so I stood up and walked over to the nearby gate and exited the premises, hoping that I could find something at least a tiny bit more sane than hares with inferiority complexes and mice with big dreams of taking over the world. But the moment I walked through the gate, I found myself once again approaching the table. The mouse and rabbit didn't even notice, so I turned and walked through the gate again, only to once again find myself walking toward the table.

"What the hell?" I turned and walked over to the nearby house, hoping that maybe if I just didn't go in the same direction that I was clearly failing at, that maybe I would have a better chance of not getting lost on my way out of the clearing. But just as I was nearing the house, I blinked and was suddenly approaching the table again. "The fuck is going on here?" I kicked a nearby table leg. I think it said "ouch!", but I didn't apologize. I was too pissed off at the moment to concern myself over the table's feelings, and I was greatly disturbed at the fact that I was even pondering the idea of the table having these feelings for me to hurt.

Hairy then crossed his arms and pouted. "I thought we weren't supposed to be making euphemisms anymore."

I sighed and threw up my arms in a resigned gesture. "Fine, if you want to swear like I'm doing, then swear! Fuck if I care if a bunny-man starts using a bunch of foul language."

"Bunny!" He leapt to his feet in outrage. "No one. Calls. Me. Bunny!" He then dove at me over the table, smacking me down onto the table and shattering a bunch of dishes in the process. "Take it back!" he said as he wrestled me into a headlock. "Take back your calling me a bunny, or else!"

I didn't know what the "or else" was, and it did sound mildly threatening, but I had never given in to the whims of an enraged rabbit before, and I didn't intend to now. So I did the most stupid thing I could think to do. I opened my mouth. "Awww, is the widdo bun-bun's fee-fees all hurted?"

The bun-bun's eyes took on the most dark and sinister look one can possibly imagine on a bunny. "That's it! You're dead, Hatter!"

I had no idea why he'd called me that, but I didn't really get time to question it as an enraged Hairy Bun-bun came barreling into me, destroying all the fancy dishes, which was mildly frustrating since I couldn't help but wonder how anyone was going to drink their tea after that. It just seemed important at the time for some reason, though looking back now, I couldn't really understand why that was. Especially since I had an enraged homicidal rabbit on the warpath, and I needed to get myself out of there before he actually did me in. But I just couldn't help myself since the whole situation seemed far too ridiculous to take seriously, and I just found myself laughing despite everything.

"You think that's funny, do you, Hatter?" said the enraged bun-bun. A teapot suddenly materialized out of nowhere and smashed down on my head. I don't know whether it literally materialized out of nowhere or if I just hadn't known it was there before Rabbit-man had deployed it as a weapon, but either way, it had been deployed.

I gripped my head in pain in response to the attack. "Fucking hell!" I rubbed at the sore spot on my head that was now soaked in hot tea, or I at least hoped it was hot tea. "Watch the hat, will ya?" I can't say why I was suddenly so concerned about my hat, but it was one of those things that made sense at the time that just don't make sense out of context. 

Added to that same branch of nonsense was the fact that Hairy suddenly backed up, cursed under his breath, and said, "Sorry, Hatter." I can't say that I really understood why he was being the one to apologize for the whole thing considering that I was clearly the one who egged him on, but I was too immature to apologize back, so I just grunted and nodded before sliding myself back into a nearby chair.

The mouse sighed in disappointment. "Aw, it was just getting good!" 

I ignored that and turned to Hairy since he seemed to be the only one around here that I could at least sort of talk to. "So why can't I leave this place?"

The rabbit took a sip of his tea and nodded. "I hear ya."

I blinked. "No, seriously, why can't I leave?"

The rabbit took a long look at me, using an unreadable expression that I couldn't read. Er, I mean, I don't know how to read rabbity expressions. That was what it was. Yep. He then turned to his cup and took a long sip of tea. A long, ominous sip. Darn rabbits and their ominous ways.

He then finally turned and looked at me again. "So you've forgotten again, have you?"

I blinked. "I've what now?"

Hairy then threw his arms and his teacup up into the air in frustration. "Seriously, Hatter, how many times are we going to have to explain the time curse to you?"

"Time curse?" I said, suddenly sobering up after all that nonsense from before. The word "curse" just kind of bumped around in my head and sent me to strange places that I would rather have forgotten, such as the labyrinth that I wasn't entirely sure I had actually ever gotten out of. 

I looked seriously at the two animals in front of me, all frivolity suddenly gone. They knew more of what was going on than I did, and as far as I knew, aside from some mild boisterous wrestling from time to time, they weren't intending to attack me like the things in the maze seemed inclined to do. This might be my only chance to understand anything before the situation got even worse. I narrowed my eyes at the two critters before me as I took a deep breath.

"Tell me everything."

**Author's Note:**

> Just posting another note here since I'm feeling chatty. I would really love some comments or questions to help spur my imagination with this story as it's still under development. I've honestly always loved working with the creative inputs of my readers to create an epic saga, so please share your thoughts. I tend to get a lot of ideas from people's feedback on my work, which is a big part of why I decided to come back to writing fanfic for a while. I'd really missed that element. Original writing needs a good way to get that same kind of feedback, you know?
> 
> Anyway, regardless of how many comments and kudos I get, I'll try to get the next chapter out soon. I don't know when "soon" is since I'm admittedly a fairly chaotic person, but I'll do my best to make sure that "soon" is actually "soon". XD


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